Without imagination, things were only as they appeared - and that was blindness. Things were more than they appeared, so much more. When he considered an oak tree, it was not just a tree. To someone small, like an ant, it was a whole landscape of rugged barky cliffs and big green leaf-plains that quaked when the sky was restless, a place of many strange creatures where fearsome winged beasts could pluck and devour someone in a blink.

Without imagination, things were only as they appeared – and thatwas blindness

Aedan had never felt embarrassed about his imagination. Without it there was no magic.

How could children have spotted what everyone else couldn’t?” “Because we haven’t killed off our imaginations,” Aedan mumbled behind a wrapping of arms and knees.